Malaysia floods force 25,000 villagers to evacuate their homes
Families have reportedly been forced to take refuge on rooftops as continuous rain swamps towns
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Your support makes all the difference.Around 25,000 villagers have been forced to evacuate their homes after floods in Malaysia.
Local media reports that families have been forced to take refuge on rooftop as continuous rain swamped towns on the Southeast Asian nation’s east coast.
A social media post from the Terengganu Disaster Management Committee secretariat said 15,665 flood victims from 4,096 families were taking shelter at 71 relief centres.
The National Disaster Command Centre (NDCC) said there are 8,853 flood victims from 2,910 families being sheltered at 28 flood relief centres across Kelantan.
The Malaysian Meteorological Department had forecasted rain in several areas within Kelantan this week.
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said authorities were being mobilised to evacuate victims.
"Many of those affected are being rescued and are taken to safer places," he said in a Facebook post.
Malaysia is particularly vulnerable to flooding because it often sees stormy weather at this time of year, with seasonal flooding regularly causing mass evacuations.
The frequency and extremity of flood events have increased in recent decades with projections showing they will continue to increase with continued climate change.
According to an article in the ASEAN Post, in the last two decades leading to 2018, Malaysia has experienced 51 natural disaster events that claimed 281 lives, affected 3 million people and costing the country around US$2 billion in damages.
Heavy monsoon rains from mid-December to early January led to some of the country’s worst flooding in decades.
About 50 people were killed and 125,000 people were forced from their homes then, with authorities recording over US$1.45 billion in damages.
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